Google Assistant is one of the most widely used voice assistants in the world. Although it supports a wide range of products including smartphones, smart displays, smart speakers, and other smart home devices, support for desktop PCs has always been a hassle. Google has not shown interest in bringing Assistant to desktops and laptops, with the exception of Chromebooks. If you’re someone who’s looking for a way to use Google Assistant on your Windows, macOS, or Linux machine, there’s good news. A Chennai-based developer Melvin. L. Abraham has built an unofficial cross-platform Google Assistant desktop client based on Google Assistant SDK. Today, we’ll be showing the steps involved to set it up and use Google Assistant on your PC.
The process to enable Google Assistant can seem a bit complicated at first glance. However, if you spare a few minutes to follow the steps, you can easily set it up and start using Google Assistant to control your PC. Another aspect worth mentioning is that this client is under development, and hence, you may experience occasional bugs while using it.
- Register Device for Using Google Assistant on PC
- Enable Google Assistant API and Setup Consent Screen
- Setup Google Assistant Client Authentication
- Google Assistant Client Impressions
1. Register Device for Using Google Assistant on PC
To get started, download the latest version of the desktop client from GitHub to your PC. I’m using a Windows 10 machine for this demonstration, but you can download the one based on your system’s operating system.
Soon after you click Create project, a page to help you set it up appears. From here, scroll down and you’ll notice an option for device registration. Click on the ‘Click here’ hyperlink.
Open Google Cloud Platform’s Console and click on the drop-down menu next to GCP’s logo in the top-left corner.
You should now choose the project you created earlier. To do so, click on the ‘All’ tab, locate the project, and hit the Open button.
When Google Assistant API’s page opens, switch to the Credentials section from the left sidebar and click on ‘Configure Consent Screen.’
Without leaving the page, scroll down, enter your email address in the developer contact information box, and click on ‘Save and Continue’.
3. Setup Google Assistant Client Authentication
You’ve now prepared your PC to run Assistant as you’ve already completed device registration and configured the consent screen of the API. With a few additional steps, you can start using Google Assistant on your PC.
After setting the path, click on the Save button.
Click on ‘Allow’ to grant Google Assistant permissions.
Although unofficial, the Google Assistant client is designed well. It looks elegant, has rounded corners, and you can resize the app horizontally and vertically. You can use the app to issue a variety of basic voice commands, including searches, checking the weather, and smart home controls. On Windows machines, you can access the client with the keyboard shortcut ‘Windows+Shift+A.’
On the app’s settings page, you get the options to tweak several aspects of the app to suit your preference. For instance, you can choose to keep the app always on top of other apps for quick access. In case you want a light theme, you can switch themes from settings.
If you’re interested to contribute to this open-source project, you can do so from the project’s GitHub page. It remains to be seen if Google ever creates desktop Assistant clients for other platforms, but until that happens, you can check this out and see if you find it useful. To test all the capabilities of the app, take a look at our best Google Assistant tricks article and try them out.
